Increasingly we are operating in complex workplaces where individual and collaborative work share blurred boundaries, and there is a constant barrage of emails and reminders pinging at us throughout the day. Sometimes it can become a bit too much, leading to frustration, loss of productivity, low morale, and even a complete burnout.
As a business owner, you strive hard to create the perfect plan supported by a strategic vision. But if your employees are constantly feeling overwhelmed and underappreciated, the whole business could come crumbling down. That’s why addressing employee productivity is one of the key components of a business plan.
In this article we share ways in which you can boost your team’s productivity, while increasing their happiness and creating a more successful business.
1. Lead by example
At the crux of most team productivity issues is usually poor time management skills. Teams that lack this critical skill will struggle with projects, meetings, and emails until they eventually succumb to the pressure by either churning out substandard work or not getting to it at all.
As a business leader, you need to set a positive example for your team. Incorporate good time management skills in your work day to show how work can be managed efficiently. Organizing and prioritizing work strategically will ensure you give due time to important things instead of spending a whole day wrestling with something that could have been put off for later or delegated to someone else. This can also help you to avoid “this meeting could have been an email” situations.
2. Set achievable goals
People work best when they are given clear goals to work toward. Sit with your team and sketch out work goals together so everyone is on the same page. Outline clearly what is expected of the team and decide together what will be the best way to go about it.
This will help the team organize and execute work more effectively. It will also help you analyze better and more fairly the work completed as you will compare it to the well-defined key goals set in the beginning.
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3. Break the communication silos
A team that communicates better is a more successful team. A lot of times team members cannot perform to the best of their abilities because of bottlenecks in team communication. Encouraging open and honest communication within a team will ensure people uninhibitedly share their insights and problems, which in turn leads to more creative problem-solving and superior performance.
4. Give your team the right tools
For teams to operate at their best, they need the right collaboration tools. Today there is an abundance of tools that allow team members to more easily communicate with one another, manage projects, train each other, and share documents among others.
Use these tools as they can immediately boost employee productivity.
5. Respect team autonomy
Higher productivity in the workplace is observed in teams that get the autonomy and room to make their own decisions and delegate work as they see fit. Once you have set clear goals and expectations, it is time to step back and let your team handle things on their own.